


Knit, Purl, Repeat

by alexiel_neesan



Category: DCU
Genre: Gen, Knitting, Pre-Reboot, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-11 08:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexiel_neesan/pseuds/alexiel_neesan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>in which there are discussions, a R2D2 beanie, internet networks best left unnamed, and knitting, after a Teen Titans mission goes wrong for Tim.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knit, Purl, Repeat

**Author's Note:**

> For the_protagonist, Partner in Crimes Extraordinaire.

+++  
He briefly regains consciousness someplace that sounds like ten thousand feet above the ground. There are voices, and he can see and recognize the ceiling of the jet, and that's Dick's face, as Nightwing, over him.  
He goes back under, wondering who was screaming loud enough to cover the noise of the engines, like their voice was ripped out of them.

+++  
The next time is even briefer, pain and light and being jolted around. He isn't— he isn't sure— body, his body what, but pain, pain everywhere, everything—

+++  
"Hello, Sleeping Beauty. Although you could make Snow White work better. Asleep, check, pale, check, dark hair, check, red lips… we'll have to work on that, ex-boyfriend wonder. Going to be tricky to give you the kiss of life, too, the tubes are kind of in my way. …think I'd look good in tights?"

No answers. It doesn't deter Stephanie. She keeps going, Tim can hear her. Or he thinks he can, and the Steph-voice of his subconscious has an accompaniment of— soft clicks, like… metal against metal, or… metal and plastic. Click, click, click, click, click, a longer pause, click, click, click, click, click.

"Because of course I'd look fantastic in tights, have you seen the outfit I rock every night? Mom thinks I joined a sewing circle thing, by the way. The way we do gossip, it might as well be true. More asskicking done though." More clicks, a much longer pause this time. Tim thinks she left, maybe. He realizes that there are… beeps, and hums, now that the clicks stopped.

Maybe she's really here.

He sleeps.

+++  
"Man, you have no idea how good you are for my forms. And you're going to look like a total dork, so I decided to help. Not that you need more work to look like a giant nerd-dork-geek that I love, but listen, R2-D2 hat. How could I pass it by? It was calling my name. The Dalek one will be for Alfred. Unless he'd rather have the scarf of epic scarf-ness. He's totally the next Doctor. Or the baddass-est companion since, well, since I last watched Doctor Who."

Click click click again. He wants to see what she's doing. He wants to see if she's really there —he doubts his subconscious Steph would be talking about R2D2 hats and Daleks and The Fourth Doctor's scarf… on second thought, she would. And so would the real Steph.

"I briefly entertained the idea to make a Bat-hat for Bruce, but Bruce will get nothing from me, only justice. Perhaps another hit right in the face. There's one brewing for you, by the way, hurry up and get better so I can give it to you without making you bleed in your skull again."

Bleeding in his skull? … he wonders what's going on. He wonders— why is he not waking up?

He thinks he moves. The clicks and Steph's voice stop, suddenly. He hears … something like a chair being dragged on the floor.

In the almost silence after that and the hurried steps, he sleeps.

+++  
"About time."

He… blinks. He blinks? The ceiling is the off-white of his room at the Manor.

"Welcome back, Snow White, get ready for the descent on your unresisting body. Dick's been pacing outside since you played "It's Ali-ive!" with you as the monster. Be thankful Alfred reigned his hugging tendencies in. The monster child won't, hug you or anything, in case you were wondering, but I betcha he'll be relieved all the same."

His eyes slide down and here is Steph, sitting cross-legged in an armchair he can't recall bringing into his room —because yes that is his room at the Manor, not the Tower, not his Theater, the Manor. It looks… empty. Emptier than he remembers. The bed is not the same. And he would remember putting medical systems, right? Especially ones that look suspiciously like the alien hybrid systems they took to use at the 'Caves, JLA and Titans.

"You said—" He tries. Tries, because it hurts, and everything hurts. Ow. Why? It probably read on his face.

Steph gets closer, putting a bundle to the side— it's blue and white and— oh. That explains the clicks and pauses. "What? What are you— oh." She follows his gaze, and holds up the bundle with two hands, knitting needles sticking out. "That will be on your poor naked head. Thank me."

It looks like a knitted R2D2 beanie, if a little lopsided and not quite finished yet. He'd smile and mouth a thank you if he wasn't currently frowning trying to understand— naked head?

"Guess I'll have to put you up to speed. Or you can find relief in the next quiet five minutes I'm giving you. You're not going to be quiet after that for a while."

He thinks about it, as well as he can. Quiet sounds good right now, even if he feels— all over the place. Hurt. Confused. He tries to nod, and she seems to get it. She picks up her knitting after five minutes. She's right, it's not quiet for quite a long time after that.

+++  
The details are not important. What's important is that he's hurt badly enough that he doesn't remember what happened— the last thing he remembers clearly is briefing the Titans to respond to a distress call in San Francisco— and that's he's hurt badly enough that he'll have to be bedridden for at least the next month. Maybe even the next two. And the most important point of all those points is that he's hurt badly enough that every single person in the Manor refused to give him his computer, despite all queries, as soon as he felt he was together enough to make them. He is hurt everywhere but for his arms (most of them) and his hands (the damage is esthetic, he'll have to review the weave on the back of his gauntlets, poor design that), but no, he is banned from his computer, his work, and his non-Bat teammates. Only the latter has chances to be lifted in a reasonable frame of time.

Everything seems unbearably loud for a time, Dick larger than life and the quiet in Alfred's eyes and he can see Damian's shadow at the door. He endures the too familiar tests and questions and the worried stares every time he closes his eyes too long —he's tired, and there's nothing he can do now that he can't do his job, sleeping more seems to be the only escape.

Dick would have probably broken another rib or two if he had hugged him.

"Told you."

"… why are you here? Counting the hours until you can give me that punch?"

Steph cackles from her perch, putting the last touches on the beanie.

"Ah-a, so you did hear me." She holds up the R2D2 hat. Tim can admire it, it's a pretty fun hat. "Nope, we were taking turns guarding your unconscious body in the four days it took you to reboot, Robot Boy. And this is done." She pulls the hat without a warning on his head. Tim can't see it, but he can feel it, rough-soft wool on his brow. He still doesn't know what she meant by naked head, he can’t raise his hands that far yet. He guesses he's going to wear R2D2 for a while, between the new scars and the burns that never faded away.

Steph leans her head on her fist, peering at him. He squirms under the scrutiny, a little. Not too much. "… what is it?"

"Oh, nothing. Just wondering what to start on next. The Dalek hat, the epic scarf, or there is this totally cute fox scarf, which would be fantastic for the big O. I'll have you know I blame you entirely for my renewed acquaintance with the joy of knitting."

He half-smiles. "I heard it was good for stress."

She snorts.

+++  
The first week, he sleeps, mostly. Steph is here pretty often, or maybe he's mostly awake only when she's here. He asks Alfred if he can watch TV, at least, and queues up Doctor Who. He falls asleep too often to follow —so much for catching up to the season he missed. Seasons. 

He itches to do something, anything, after the second week. Dick tries to read to him— that involves staying in place too long for him, and he jostles Tim all the time between his fidgeting and the repeated attempts to hug. Tim demonstrates he’s not injured enough to not throw Dick off his bed. Dick takes the armchair, after that.

Between the first week and the second, though, Steph worked up the starts of a— Tim can’t see it yet, but she swears it’s a fox scarf. For Barbara. 

When he asks where she finds all of that —the R2D2 beanie he takes off only to bath, the scarf, the dalek hat she talked about— she cackles some more and tell him that there are things he is not ready for yet. He doesn’t remember when was the last time they hung out, and this, despite the circumstances and hurting all over and his tendency to fall asleep trying to keep track of her needles and how the knots worked together, is the closest to hanging out he can figure. He likes it. He missed her.

He realizes he said it out loud when she kisses his cheek. “Aw, ex-boyfriend wonder. I missed you too.” Then they watch Doctor Who. He stays awake long enough to see the first episode and make Steph laugh wondering out loud what the meeting with the new companion and Dick would look like, this time.

He still hasn’t seen Bruce, and he pushes that fact far, far away from his conscious mind. 

+++  
By the third week, he gives up. He still has no computer, no way of sitting up, no privacy (literally none, he can’t move without help), no access to his job. Alfred is Alfred and he never liked the man more, Dick is a persistent presence, Damian a shadow, Tam had came and left once she was sure he was still breathing, mountains of work left by his absence at WE waiting for her. The caped and masked teddy bear sporting a briefcase as large as it was she had brought him was staring him down on the other side of the room, where he couldn't take it down. Steph, of course, laughs at it. And at him. "I like her style!" His best glare, tempered by the R2D2 beanie, only makes her laugh harder.

He's bored out of his skull. So when she gets there, fox scarf in progress, it's pretty natural that he turns to the sole divertissement he can find.

"Do you have extra needles?" At least it doesn't make her cackle. Not right away, he's certain she keeps it for his first tries.

And she does. Knitting is hard.

+++  
He has a lot of time to think. Kon, Bart, Dick, they'd laugh and say he thinks too much, all the time. They're right. He thinks about pictures, and gathering clues, always something moving in the back of his head, often unrelated to what was going in front of him, but necessary for the long run, for figuring things out, to advance in his investigations. He thinks a lot about his actions. Second-guesses —from Dick, from other heroes, from Bruce— don't bother him. He's more ruthless on himself than anyone on the planet. 

He doesn't usually think much about Before— a neat category for everything he doesn't like to be reminded of. He'd be ashamed to say out loud that his parents feature heavily in there. But it's just in his head, so it's alright. 

There are a lot of things he remembers, that he wishes he didn't, that pops up when he expects it the least. Memory is very closely associated with the senses— he remembers reading things about that. About how the sense of smell is very closely associated to memory, how strong the link to onto the other is. 

He's not really prepared for the nagging in the back of his head when he has the equivalent of a handkerchief of knitted fabric he made under his fingers. It's not exactly right, but— he frowns. Steph had brought him a sweater from WellGoods, telling him she'd teach him to knit the same way she had learned, first unraveling the piece of clothing, then separating the colors in balls, and then only starting to knit it in a different shape. She had told him how cheap knitting wool was crap, where she had gone with her Gram to find the best kind of old sweaters, and topped all with horror stories about mites and insects and things eaten through. 

It's not exactly right, the texture is not quite the same, neither is the pattern, and it's not soft enough, but he's… remembering. 

He had a knitted blanket once. 

He frowns and thinks about it until Steph appears, late in the afternoon. "I think you are in good enough shape right now to be able to withstand the most glorious of networks ever created on the world wide web."

He makes her bookmark it on his computer, and Babs' voice laugh with them in his laptop's tiny speakers.

+++  
The mixed feelings Damian evoke in Tim are many and it's not enough of a week doing the thinking-remembering thing to make sense of them. All he can say, is that he's not mad about Robin taken from him anymore. Not mad at Damian, anyway. There is still resentment tinging his interactions with Dick, but from what he sees, Dick is doing a good job with Damian. A job he shouldn't be doing, now that Bruce is back, if the man is even in Gotham at all. 

He's probably projecting, but Damian is twelve at best, and Tim can remember being twelve all too painfully, and Bruce might be his father on paper but the man had never been— paternal. Familial. Bursting with approval and affection. He somehow doubts the man changed for his son by blood, or else he's be there. 

That was what the blanket he had once had been. Something like family, and safe, and warmth, and approval. It had been handmade, a gift from a relative, maybe a grandparent? He didn't remember ever meeting them, only seeing the pictures artfully arranged on the grand piano in the salon of the old Drake House, Before. The more he thinks about it, the more he wonders what ever happened to his blanket. Had it been sold alongside the rest of the house? Was it forgotten in a cardboard box somewhere? Had it been thrown away? He couldn't remember when it had stopped being there, being his. 

He wonders if Damian has anything like that, something that is quite literally a security blanket —knives and swords do not count, and he had made his stance on the uniform quite clear from the beginning, in that it was an uniform, and nothing else. 

So when he finally manages to retain his rights to his laptop, in between new specs for the Red Robin uniform —clearly the cowl had failed, what with the traumatic head injury and intracranial bleeding they had shaved his head for, he needed something else, something better, probably rethinking the under-armor polymer mesh and expending it, but not to the expense of flexibility; he most probably needed to rethink his strategy against whatever had been the cause of his injuries too, and possibly his line of work— and catching up on his friends —the relief had been palpable in the emails he had received, Kon videochatting him in short conversations, Bart zipping by, all of them noting they'd be at his side in a flash but they had been warned that he needed rest, and he'd have to see with Alfred to lift that ban— and the dry and humorous notes from Tam about WE, he browses through "the most glorious of networks" for the pattern of a blanket, for one that might be familiar and not that far from his knitting capacities. 

His tries in passing of new ways of twisting strands of wool together are better than thinking too much, or being frustrated with healing, or being bored out of his skull when he's alone. There's a decidedly Damian-shaped shadow in his doorway most of the time, anyway. 

"Guess what?" is the first thing Steph says to him that day. 

"No, I'd rather you tell me right away. Less chances of you mocking me relentlessly." 

She pouts. "You are no fun, bird boy. Where am I going to get my daily dose of mocking?" 

"I'm sure you'll survive."

She swats him with the start of the longest scarf ever, now that the fox scarf is waiting in Babs' office for the winter. "Still no fun— anyway, you're starting PT next week!" 

"You have no right to be that excited about it." 

"I so can." There's a lull in conversation, and the Damian-sized shadow leaves the doorway. Steph glances up. "Have you found what you wanna do? Or can I interest you in a zombie-doll? Your stitches are way more regular and tiny than mine." 

He smiles. "I have something in mind, but I'm gonna need some supplies." 

+++  
Steph's excitement, and the incessant babbling she had kept up while she had tried to buy most of the store —"That shade is totally you!" "…no, please put it down, I just need light cream wool." "You could put stripes! Live a little." "… fine, but just one bundle thing." "It's called yarn and balls, you know. Which I'm sure you know, you probably researched the integrality of the history of knitting and stuff the moment you picked your computer." "Did not." "I can ear you lie~" "The network was… very thorough in its history." "Hah! Knew it." "I don't need those four balls of different rainbowed yarns you just picked up." "Shush, it's for your own good."— kept him in good spirits during PT. He finds that the knitting helped, when he wasn't too exhausted to work on it. 

He toys with the idea of keeping it as a hobby— there's no-one to tell him he can't, that it's not done. He's going to go back to his place soon enough. It's useful. It's relaxing, in a frustrating way sometimes, and sometimes it's the perfect way to wipe out what's in his mind and just count. He's thinking about how to use it as a skill for his uniform— Babs had picked on this line of thought and had sent him links to some interesting research. Maybe he could slip a word about it to R&D at WE and toy with it on the side. 

Babs also mentioned she had kept the footage of the trip to the yarn store. The footage from both sides and the audio. That led to long and complicated negotiations that were fought to a standstill. Her parting "Looking foreword to further overtures on your part, Mister Drake," left him smiling and worried about the kind of things she could decide to do with all of it.

He still doesn't see Bruce. Damian still doesn't talk to him. He heals. He knits.

+++

The day he walks under his own power in the 'Cave, two months after he woke up, it's empty. He hadn't expected otherwise. It's the middle of the day, and Dick and Damian prefers the more central Cave under Wayne Tower. Makes him wonder why he was brought to the Manor at all, but it's a bit late to worry about that. 

He catches up on things, review two months of activity. He knows he's not street ready, won't be before another month, but he can still work here, and go to WE, and catch up on his life. And go back to his apartment. He's going to miss talking with Steph so often. He's going to miss being watched by Barbara so closely. He's going to miss Alfred's cooking.

That night, after he packs the few belongings he's taking back to his place, he unfolds the blanket he made. It's a pale cream, with blue borders. There's no pattern, rather it look like a stitches sampler, bobbles, cables, and others, each in their square. It's soft, and it's still not quite what he remembers —and he knows he'll never quite know, never quite find exactly the same, never be able to make exactly the same.

It's alright.

"Damian?" The shadow doesn't move. "I know you're there. I'd appreciate talking to you directly rather than have to parse the shadows."

"What do you want, Drake?" It's a step up over the "failure"-s and other niceties he overheard in the last weeks.

"To give you something."

"What could you possibly have that I could want."

Tim folds the blanket over itself, ending with a neat, soft, square in his hands. "Here." He doesn't hold it out, wait for the kid to do the first move. 

Damian gets closer— Tim can't help but imagine a cat. Fitting, for an assassin, and he idly wonders if he and Selina met already. Damian doesn't sit, just extend his hand. They're the same height, like this. His fingers curl around the folded blanket for a second, weave through the soft, loosely looped yarn. Tim sees a cat, again, happy-pawing a pillow.  It's almost too fast, could be explained by a trick of the light, and it's something Tim will never say out loud, but for an instant, Damian gets a distant look on his face. Tim imagines he had the same on his face when he was trying to remember his blanket. He folds his hands on his knees, leaving the blanket in Damian's hands. 

Damian yanks his fingers out and throws the blanket in the trash can, on the way out. "You're pathetic, Drake." 

+++  
The blanket has disappeared from the trash when Tim leaves the next morning.

/end


End file.
